In the manufacture of certain dough products, for example pastries, it is desirable to provide laminated dough. Laminated dough is dough with alternating distinct layers of fat and dough. Lamination provides a distinct texture in the resulting cooked dough product. Examples of laminated products are danish, croissants, etc.
Typical art laminators have two conveyers at right angles to one another. The top conveyer generally reciprocates back and forth depositing layers of dough onto a lower conveyer. The dough deposited on the lower conveyer is then conveyed through rollers or other processing equipment to provide a uniform thickness of dough. The dough fed to the reciprocating conveyer has two layers of dough with a layer of fat or shortening therebetween. Thus, when the dough is deposited on the take away conveyer, it is in the form of a plurality of alternating layers of fat or shortening and dough. A form of this type of laminator is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,890, dated Nov. 18, 1986, to Peter Swanson.
Such laminators are effective but can require a significant amount of floor space. This can be objectionable in some environments, for example small bakeries which may not have adequate floor space to accommodate large machinery. Another problem with this type of laminator is that it precludes the use of an in-line dough processing system. It also laminates dough in even numbers of layers.
It has long been a desire to provide an in-line dough laminator which would provide uniform laminating without complicated machinery. The present invention provides an effective and simple in-line dough laminator. The drive means provides easy variability of the laminating process to provide the desired amount of lamination.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a dough laminator which has in-line dough conveyers.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an in-line dough laminator which can be adjusted to provide different numbers of layers in the deposited dough product.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an in-line dough laminator which has drive means which are easily changed for adjustment of the dough lamination process.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an in-line dough laminator which is simple in construction and positive in operation.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an in-line dough laminator which provides uniformly laminated dough.